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Showing content with the highest reputation on 03/26/2020 in all areas

  1. You were just a couple of days behind me... KFCH to KICT on 2/26... first real X/C in my M20E
    5 points
  2. If you are really 6.5" tall, you will have a hard time reaching the step, let alone the rudder pedals or seeing over the panel... even when standing in the seat! Of course we all knew you meant 6' 5", but I nearly snorted my drink out my nose when I pictured a little man about the size of a G.I. Joe action figure trying to fit in a Mooney. There has to be one in every crowd who takes things too literal... and now you found him!
    4 points
  3. Yeah with everyone working from home.... with all the kids underfoot full time... I think there might be a run on vasectomies in the next few months, rather than more kids.
    4 points
  4. @Robert Trask, I will be at my hangar at Spirit of St Louis Thursday after 1700 to do some autopilot maintenance with my mechanic. Give me a call at (314) 283-5718 and we'll get you in the airplane, if not tomorrow then the next time you're available. Cheers, Rick
    3 points
  5. How's that squeeky clean new tire look? I think I will get out Friday or Saturday and scuff it up a bit with a landing or three. And check out the gear doors - they snapped right back. No damage since it was not a moving flat but a standing flat.
    3 points
  6. I don’t normally post anymore and if you read some of the threads on this site lately, you know why. I would like to give you a perspective from someone who manages people in Singapore, Spain, Denmark, Italy, China, the United States and few other places in this world. The reason China, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea are fairing better is they have a disciplined culture. Of course some of that discipline is placed on them. But none the less, they took this situation seriously from the start and reacted accordingly. Taiwan was the role model in this pandemic but Singapore’s DEFCON approach also was solid. China is opening back up for business. I have an employee in Singapore who’s spouse is traveling to China for business. What discipline is applied? Upon arrival in China, they are sequestered, go through a medical screening and if okay, they are handed a barrier suite, mask, gloves and are bussed to a hotel where they are isolated for 2 weeks. After the 2 weeks and they are clean, they can conduct business in China. Upon their return to Singapore they reverse the process. My employee is pleased they will see their spouse in 42 days. That is a discipline. Hell, in this country we can’t even get Hank to buy into ADS-B, how well do you think this discipline will be accepted by Americans? I was on a briefing last night on China. Wuhan’s Hubei is still locked down but other provinces are relaxing restrictions. Wuhan only reported 1 new case last week and it is expected their restrictions will be relaxed shortly. This is a country that has been in lockdown mode since before the beginning a year. They have flattened the curve but are standing on top of that curve. As for Italy comments, wow! The reason Northern Italy was hit hard was not only because of an elderly population (oldest population behind Japan) but because Northern Italy is a favorite ski resort for people all around the world. And by the time they recognized what was happening, it was already entrenched and soon overwhelmed the medical capacity. My Italian employee’s father is a physician. They certainly are not attributing all deaths to the virus, in fact they need to know the cause to help determine whether untested deaths are virus related. And for you, it’s a “normal flu” people. You don’t convert ice rinks to morgues in a “normal flu” season. This is a “novel” virus. There ain’t no cure (asked the guy who died taking chloroquine phosphate thinking it could ward off the virus). The best we can hope for is containment until we have good treatments and a vaccine (and let’s pray it doesn’t mutate too many times). And for you members of Darwin’s Club. Please, by all means, go out with Lt. Governor Patrick and get yourself infected. The rest of us monkeys will be watching from the trees. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
    3 points
  7. In California, not withstanding a handful of counties around the Bay area that apparently have more stringent shelter in place guidelines, our state guidelines totally exempt the Aviation Sector as essential even including flight instruction and recreational aircraft use. I had a Commercial student just complete his Checkride since our state wide shelter in place order became effective and the DPE had no issue doing it. On expiration of flight reviews, I can imagine the FAA allowing pilots with expired flight reviews to fly solo VFR to get to their CFI for a flight review. Check your insurance policy to make sure you are still covered without a current flight review. (I believe I am on mine, but with all the changes recently such as dropping open pilot clauses I'd want to check again). I personally only do Wings Flight Reviews these days. It really is in the best interest of the client. First you do the ground on your own online with lots of free courses to pick from. Anyone that attends Wings seminars will have this requirement already partially completed as well. Then we fly the Wings flight activities together which gets you bonus points should the FAA ever want to talk to you regarding a possible Pilot Deviation. If you get called in, the first thing they do is check your Pilot history. When they see your Wings activities they immediately recognize you as one of the good guys that take their currency training seriously. Also, Wings participants are less likely to get called into the FSDO than those that don't participate in the Wings Pilot Proficiency Program.
    2 points
  8. The Gecko from geico
    2 points
  9. No where is nice. Very nice. So I see you live very very close to the last A in Alabama. hahah.... We have lived here for almost 18 years by choice. We also have great night skies. Look up KPTD and we are 1.5 miles to the airport. In the winter we sometimes get aura borealis. We live on the river and sometimes there is a bald eagle I see on a little island on a tree a few hundred yards from the house. At night there is no sound other than wind whirring through trees. It is a good place to seclude in the best of times. And certainly in the worst of times.
    2 points
  10. Nowhere is often very nice. Check out Eclectic, it's only 8 miles away, all 1001 people in the last census. Sadly, most people not from around here won't even recognize the "big cities" on the map other than Atlanta. But it's nice! It's quiet, not crowded, and it's dark at night. There ain't no Rush Hour, and a traffic jam is more than 3 or 4 cars at an intersection.
    2 points
  11. I can't complain too much as the cost of all these little repairs has been quite reasonable. It's been the timeline, and subsequent loss of use of the plane that has been the most frustrating. Well, that and the fact that the items causing the longest delay were all maintenance induced failures.
    2 points
  12. Should be constantly adjusted for hands-off flight, so no reminder needed. It's on the Pre-Takeoff Checklist, where there are ni aerodynamic forces acting to remind you.
    2 points
  13. Id say drain the fuel now. If the airplane is getting weighed, get it done before you calibrate the tanks. The unusable part of the fuel doesnt matter in the calibration proccess. For the weighing, you want onky unusable fuel. Topping the tanks off and subtracting usually results in a loss of useful load.
    2 points
  14. Hi Matt! The Ovation exhaust on the IO-550 is better tuned then the SR22, and faster always sounds better..... -ben
    2 points
  15. Enjoy your new job, Alex. Nothing beats getting paid to fly someone else's airplanes!
    2 points
  16. I used to have a barber that fondly remembers that product. She said she did a good business “fixing” Flowbee haircuts back in the day.
    2 points
  17. That's Coke, and it's just about any non-alcoholic beverage. Ain't no "soda" down here 'cept for drinking with bourbon.
    2 points
  18. Flying over the Kitchener/Waterloo Ontario airport this afternoon; sad to see 13 B737's parked indefinitely due to COVID-19. If you know where to look, the Doc's shop is visible in the picture.
    2 points
  19. I was able to get up yesterday for a quick flight around Miami Beach. Very odd to see miles and miles of neatly raked beach with no one around. As expected, there are also several clusters of anchored cruise ships...
    2 points
  20. The rumors are true. Email arrived today that my EDM900 is on its' way home.
    2 points
  21. In China, for years it has been the case that every Customs entry point screens every human walking by for body temperature, 100%, no exceptions. Obviously this only detects someone with an elevated temperature, but it’s a start. Here where, as of late, it’s become fashionable to blame aliens for everything, a friend returning from overseas just passed through KATL, the busiest airport we have. No body scan, no verbal screening, no nothing. My friend had been in a safe place, a country with better health care than we have, adequate testing, only 4 reported cases, and a disciplined, science-based approach. She is now self-quarantined and cannot believe the risk she was subjected to needlessly by our lack of any measures whatsoever to check thousands of people coming into the US’ busiest airport. I saw a piece by a doctor who explained that just one infected person could be the root cause of 30,000 infected people before showing any symptoms. How many unknowingly infected people went through KATL that day, or any day?
    2 points
  22. That still requires the pilot to look outside. Maybe the other guy would have seen us and turned.
    2 points
  23. Observed a little "Social Distancing" Saturday afternoon. Carb replaced, a trip around the pattern to ensure all was well, then went for a little flight just to relax and enjoy the beautiful green hills before they turn brown for the rest of the year.
    2 points
  24. I've got a 1978 M20J with the Firewall Forward "Horsepower Plus" STC SE2741NM. This is an IO-360-A3B6D with the stock dual magnetos and no other engine performance upgrades of note. I do have GAMI injectors which got me to a spread of 0.2GPH and reduces tendency to run rough, especially at altitude. This STC limits propellers to the stock McCauley so that's what I'm running. This engine has about 350 hours on it since overhaul by FF. No real issues with the engine so far. The airframe only has a couple of speed mods, notably flap/aileron seals, but it still has the multi-piece belly. Usually I fly this airplane at Economy Cruise (low altitudes, up to about 9000 feet) and Best Power Cruise above that. Ram air is open on all runs. I keep the cowl flaps closed and make sure the CHTs don't get out of hand, and in all cases below I've let the airspeed and temps settle for at least 20 minutes before recording numbers. I haven't been writing down degrees ROP/LOP. Weight on these speed runs is around 2500 pounds so I'm averaging the 2300 and 2740 speeds in the POH. RPM, MP, and fuel flow are measured with a JPI 800. I've got more runs than this but picked 4 that I could match to the POH. The TL;DR on this performance for this STC is that starting around 9k feet, it gives me lower fuel burn, and sometimes better speed. Below that, it performs like a stock engine: at or slightly below factory numbers.
    1 point
  25. GJOG is getting closer to fine. Mid-April, if all goes according to plan...
    1 point
  26. So as I tell this war story, bear in mind that I have been in an accident in a turboprop that resulted in a totaled aircraft. This story tops that experience in how close I came to death in an aircraft. So I was in a Citation going from the DFW area to FLL many years ago. As I got closer to FLL the controller descended me to 3000 feet and has me intercept the Loc for 10L/R (dont remember which one). What I remember that stood out was how far out they did this... I was probably 20 miles from the field at this point. This was unusual to me. Flying along doing what I was supposed to, I was given a frequency change. I looked down to tune the radio. And for reasons unknown, rather than call immediately I looked back up to take a breath and look around outside... That is when I saw the tailfeathers of a C172 directly in front of me less than 1/4 mile. I'm doing 250 kias and he is probably at 100kias. A 150 knot overtake with very little time before impact. The Ap was disconnected and a maneuver to the right was made. I passed about 100 feet to the right of him. The next thing I hear is a radio transmission. " Approach this is cessna Nxxxxx, we just had a jet go past us really fast and really close, were are on the loc at 3000 as instructed" Obviously 2 different controllers had put up both of us on the loc at the same altitude. Had I looked up only a few seconds later a collision might not have been avoidable. Had I not seen him, I absolutely would be dead as I was heading straight up his butt. The severity of this situation didn't really hit me in the air. I just did what I had to do and it was definitely a "wtf" moment. However as I was reflecting on the entirety of the flight later that night, the severity really set in and I got the shakes thinking about the serendipitous nature of seeing him. It was probably one of the first things that happened to me that made me realize that it CAN happen to me. Unfortunately it wasn't the last reminder of this. Even when flying on an IFR plan, when VMC, keep that head on a swivel at all times.
    1 point
  27. Just heard M20L N78MP fly over SMO at 4500ft north bound. She sounded absolutely amazing!! Even had a little crackle in the exhaust note to it. Really wish that Porsche thing could have worked out better than it did. I here airplanes all the time and this one got my attention. I couldn’t pinpoint it until I looked it up on FlightAware. -Matt
    1 point
  28. Unless there's a new way of spelling it, i'm not seeing it . . . Ah, i see it now By the way, Cowboy Steakhouse is one of my favorite restaurants - I live just 20 minutes away.
    1 point
  29. Mmmmmm! I think I am going to visit that steakhouse someday!
    1 point
  30. I believe that spike is coincident with when China changed the parameters to include CT findings.
    1 point
  31. Most "soda water" is brought to the store by a "transfer truck". Now I'm "fix'n to "carry" my wife to that same store. I'm a Californian, but I married a Southern Belle 5 years ago. I've learned to speak southern out of necessity.
    1 point
  32. I don’t know. Normal 231 doors? It is nice they had memory and just flexed back on their own!
    1 point
  33. Everyone knows being on speed is the key to a good landing. If you have an AOA indicator that helps tremendously without having to even think about it. As a bonus, I too have found that holding the nose off as long as possible impresses your passengers greatly as people tend not to notice much when the mains touch, but when you hold off and just barely tap the nose gear down, you get 5 star landing ratings from them, and makes almost every landing a great one. And I think it saves your brakes as if you do it right, you bleed off lots of airspeed holding the nose off as long as possible, as if I'm on speed, and hold nose up, I can usually make that first exit without much braking at all. Of course this doesn't apply to gusty or large crosswind landings, but every other time, its fun to do.
    1 point
  34. I assume you don't queue up either.
    1 point
  35. Because 3 hrs on line is so much better than an hour face to face, tailored to your needs, with the ability to ask questions. I've taken many Wings courses, the difficult part is finding an instructor to sign off on them in the system. I only attended one of the old programs before the current abomination rolled out, and I just think any "program" that requires a 30+ page Help section should be redone by a person with sense!
    1 point
  36. Carb heat heats the air reducing its density and making the mixture richer. The excessive drop might be explained if the mixture was already a bit on the rich side. You didn’t mention your elevation when you ran the test. If you were above sea level, this could explain it. Try leaning the mixture for max rpm (best power mixture) and rerunning the test. Also, try running the test at different rpm to see if the power enrichment function of the carburetor has an effect.
    1 point
  37. And Tinder will blow up and we'll have those diseases to contend with as well.
    1 point
  38. My best buddy had a turkey land on her head
    1 point
  39. Am I allowed to enter our Bunny, named Mr Bunny, into the MS Dog competition - our dog Strava not withstanding.
    1 point
  40. They will come out. I purchased a plexiglass polish at Sun-n-Fun a few years back as my windscreen was full of micro-scratches. You must use a clean(new) microfiber cloth and a lot of elbow grease. I will snap a pic of the product next time I go to the hangar. I would recommend never wiping the windscreen if it has any kind of dirt on it. The best way to clean is a running hose and your hand. edit: I'm pretty sure this is the product I have. https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cspages/lpsealant.php?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIstuwkIy06AIVDFYMCh0uVQBoEAQYByABEgL4b_D_BwE
    1 point
  41. I have stopped in-person flight training with my students. It was my personal choice, one that is in line with general guidelines. The Maryland Governor yesterday issued a directive that (vaguely) exempts aviation flight training from shuttering. MD Directive 3-23-2020 But most flight schools in the area are shutting down all but solo flight activity.
    1 point
  42. Thank you for all the input , right, wrong , mischievous or indifferent. There must be more engineers among us who want to resolve issues of this great product, than the ones, who seek fame on the social media. There seem to be two different issues, one cross-wiring, which was from factor, second the hot mag, which could have happened any time during its life. Both were discovered by Eric at the transition trading for my coworker at our company. The mag, will be replaced by MSC at Lapeer, once the stay-home order is released, due to the virus. Stay healthy, stay vigilant and value your lives. Perry
    1 point
  43. I would be surprised if you took the cartridges out and they weren't dry. The Aeroshell 22 is the only approved lubricant and needs to be done every year. About one Mooney out of 100 gets the speed brakes lubricated every year. Everyone seems to wait until they fail and then send them in for $1000 each to be serviced.
    1 point
  44. I do. She's been on commerical flights before. I am not concerned about the flight, but more about the noise level in a Bravo. Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk
    1 point
  45. I was once vectored into a developing thunderstorm cell at night. While I held it level the VSI shot up to 2000fpm climb and then just as quickly swung all the way to 2000fpm descent. Approach helpfully reminded me to maintain 3000ft. It's the only time I've ever told ATC "unable." Just when I was sure that I was going to die we flew out the other side of the cell. That experience still bothers me a little every time I enter a cloud.
    1 point
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